


The Island of Discarded ADAs

by orphan_account



Series: The Island of Discarded ADAs [1]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Humor, Ghosts, Islands, Latin, Rafael Barba Can't Catch a Break, This Was Supposed To Be Funnier, Unrequited Love, as in Lingua Latina, post-undiscovered country
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-28 01:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18201368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Barba wakes up on The Island of Discarded ADAs, which is allegedly somewhere off the coast of Florida.Inspired by a throwaway comment from Liv when Alex Cabot briefly returned in S19.





	The Island of Discarded ADAs

**Author's Note:**

> The Latin in this is probably at least 50% wrong, because there's no such thing as conversational Latin and there's no such thing as ghosts, but -- 
> 
> um --
> 
> ghosts speak Latin? 
> 
> Anyway, this story was supposed to be funnier. It's a little, or a lot, sad. Never let me do this again. ;-)

Rafael Barba was dreaming about baseball, which was very out of character for him, and he was able to rather lucidly reflect on that fact as he stood in the outfield of Yankee Stadium, his right arm held high up in the air, waiting to catch the fly ball improbably hurtling towards him.

When he jumped up to catch the ball, Barba landed on his back, resulting in a home run for the batter. Yankee Stadium was immediately re-named after a bank, and the fans booed Barba mercilessly.

But Barba couldn’t move. He felt ice-cold water creeping into the field, up near his feet, then past his thighs. A wave suddenly hit his stomach; the cold water on his skin startled him awake.

He expected to wake up in bed. When he opened his eyes, however, he saw a stretch of blue sky above him, and still felt ice-cold water — and now, wet, muddy sand — beneath him.

He closed his eyes again, hoping that when he opened them he’d be in the bed he had slept in for the last ten years, in the Brooklyn condominium that he was selling so that he could move on from Manhattan SVU, from all the damage his most recent mistake had caused.

“Rafael,” a woman’s voice said. “Open your eyes. You’re safe.”

He blinked his eyes open once more and saw a red-haired woman in a sundress, sunglasses, and an oversized hat standing over him. If he didn’t know better, he’d have sworn she was former SVU Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot. 

“Casey,” she called, “he’s awake. He’s still a little confused. Come help me.”

With that, Barba found his more recent predecessor Casey Novak standing over him too. Novak wore a black bathing suit, her legs partially covered by a green wrap-around. Barba closed his eyes one more time, praying he’d wake up in bed. 

When he felt Cabot’s and Novak’s hands grasping his arms, he decided he might as well explore this lucid dream, if it was indeed a lucid dream. He feared that it wasn’t.

If he’d been found guilty and sent to prison, where he’d been killed by a corrections officer or a prisoner trying to get on a CO’s good side — a likely possibility, given the death threats that followed his prosecution of Gary Munson — then at least, mercifully, he had no memory of his own murder. 

But he _remembered_ the not guilty verdict. He remembered embracing Olivia Benson in the gallery afterwards. He remembered the relief he’d felt that he was not going to be thrown to Munson’s buddies, that he wasn’t being sentenced to be murdered in prison, terrified, followed by the canyon of guilty conscience that opened up between him and the woman who’d become his best friend. 

But for how, he was barefoot, in nothing but a purple bathing suit, with sand in his toes and in his hair.

“Welcome,” Novak said, brushing some of the sand off of Barba’s back, “to the Island of Discarded ADAs.”

“I assume that’s a euphemism for purgatory?”

“Oh no,” Cabot said, “we’re about ten miles off the coast of Florida.”

“So I’m free to leave?” Barba asked, slowly turning his head to examine what appeared to be a beach resort. 

Cabot pushed her sunglasses higher on her face and looked down at her own bare feet. “Well,” was all she said.

“So not purgatory at all, then.”

“No! This isn’t hell. I told you, you left SVU, which means you now live on the Island of Discarded ADAs.”

“That seems … improbable.”

Barba spotted another woman with sunglasses, hair twisted up into a bun, hurrying towards him. “Thank goodness,” she said.

“Connie?” Barba asked, recognizing the former assistant to the EADA.

Her face brightened into a wide smile. “I’m so glad you’re here. For ten years now, I’ve been the only one who can talk to the ghosts.”

Barba raised one eyebrow.

“Because ghosts only speak Latin,” Cabot said, as if she’d expected Barba to know that already. “Connie’s managed to combine Spanish with Law Latin to get the ghosts to talk to her.”

“Everybody else here says they’re too busy to learn Spanish or Latin,” Rubirosa explained, the hint of a smirk forming on her lips, “but it’s really because they’re all afraid of ghosts.”

Barba shoved his hands into the pockets of his bathing suit to hide the fact that they were trembling.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of ghosts too. It’s just Claire Kincaid, Alex Borgia, and Sonya Paxton. They’re nice. A little pissed off about how they were killed, but they’re nice, I promise.”

“Mulrooney’s fluent in Latin now,” Novak commented. 

Rubirosa laughed. “That’s because the ghosts are the only people here who’ll talk to him.”

“The presence of ghosts,” Barba said, his forehead wrinkling in concentration, “strongly suggests to me that this isn’t just an island off the coast of Florida.”

Cabot waved a hand in his face. “There’s no room for legal arguments.”

“That’s … not a legal argument. How do I get out of here?”

“Just come with us,” Novak said.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” Barba looked out at the ocean, wondering if he could swim to the Florida coastline. “I’m going to —”

“Ocean’s full of jellyfish,” Cabot warned. “The really big ones filled with poison and the really small ones that’ll swim up into your crotch.”

“You know what? If this is hell, I probably deserve it.”

“Don’t feel so sorry for yourself,” Cabot said, not confirming his suspicions either way. “You’ll show him around, Connie? Casey and I haven’t had lunch yet.”

“I’ve got it,” Rubirosa said. 

“Thanks. We’ll see you at dinner?”

“Steakhouse?”

“Sounds good to me.” 

Cabot and Novak hurried off ahead of them, and Rubirosa patted Barba on the back with an open hand, leading him towards what looked like a beach motel with a wraparound wooden deck, a bar extending off to one side. “There’s an adjustment period,” she said. “Everybody here used to be a workaholic.”

Barba licked his lower lip. “The addiction to workahol is tough to break.”

Rubirosa smiled, a hint of sadness behind her eyes. “See? You’ll do fine.”

“So what exactly do we do here all day?”

“It’s like being on vacation.” 

“Forever?”

“Something like that.”

“Are we allowed to visit home?”

“You’ll have to talk to Alex,” Rubirosa said. “She explains it best.”

“Cabot or Borgia?”

“Cabot. With Borgia — Claire and Sonya too — they can understand a little Spanish, if you throw in some law Latin phrases and speak in a sort of Italian accent. They’re nice, though. Cabot and Novak, Carmichael and Southerlyn too, have hangups about ghosts.”

Barba followed Rubirosa up the wooden steps, surprised that the soles of his feet didn’t sense any warmth or splinters. “How long have you been here?” he asked her.

“Ten years, give or take.”

“You worked a case with us once, as a federal prosecutor,” Barba commented. “I remember because Liv was annoyed that the feds were involved.”

“Alex will explain more tomorrow.”

“Connie, tell me now, please,” he said, trying in vain to modulate his voice so he didn’t sound like he was begging, “I’m — confused.”

“You’re scared,” she said. “I told you, the island takes some adjustment.” She led him in to the front door of the motel. “You’re in room 201,” she said, “the far end of the hallway upstairs.”

“No key?’

“You just have to tap on the door. If it’s your room it’ll let you in automatically.”

“Esto es lo que — hell? Purgatory?”

“No.”

 _Limbo_ , he thought, and remembering for a split second what that constituted, he shuddered.

“Are there clothes in the room?” he asked, aiming for a more practical question.

“No, the bathing suits dry as soon as you take them off. One of the other guys, Mulrooney, has a T-shirt. I don’t know how or why we get the clothes we get. Alex Cabot knows a lot, though. Claire, too, if you can decipher what she’s saying.”

As they approached the stairs to the second floor, Barba returned to his original line of questioning. “How did you work with us five years ago?” 

“Let Alex explain tomorrow. Meet us on the deck for breakfast.”

“What are you protecting me from?”

Rubirosa sighed resignedly. “You’re allowed to go back for one week every three to five years, but only if you — this is what it says in the handbook — make Olivia Benson sad or angry for at least 24 hours.”

“That’s cruel.” Barba started his march up the steps, turning around once to look back down at Rubirosa. “Do not mention Olivia Benson’s name in this place ever again. She is too good for whatever is happening here.”

“Rafael, I’m sorry.” Rubirosa leaned against the banister, her big, sympathetic eyes turned upwards towards Barba. “Those are the rules. I went back for a while, got to visit some friends, but I had to —”

“Make Olivia’s life difficult first.” Barba shook his head. “Good night. I’d say “I’ll see you in the morning,” but I’d like to believe that I’m going to wake up in my bed at home.”

He went upstairs, left his bathing suit in the bathroom, and checked the closets and drawers for more clothing. There was none.

Maybe you had to return to New York and disappoint Olivia Benson a certain number of times before you earned a T-shirt or at least a pair of flip-flops. But if disappointing Olivia Benson earned you clothing on this island, then Barba should have been welcomed with a closet full of suits and ten thousand socks.

He dozed off for a while, and when he woke up, he knew he was still in the same godforsaken motel room, on the same godforsaken island. It was still dark outside, and because there was no clock or television in the room, there was no indication of how much time had passed.

His bathing suit was dry, so he put it back on and walked out into the hall. He noticed that he didn’t shiver.

Outside on the deck, he wasn’t cold at all despite the cool breeze in the air.

“I’m sorry, Liv,” he said, half to himself. “I love you.”

He hoped that wherever she was — wherever he was — she felt his _I love you_.

He noticed a light on the far end of the deck, and as he approached he saw an outdoor bar, fully stocked, surrounded by tables. “If you’ve got a good 15-year scotch, I’ll take it,” Barba told the bartender, who was facing away from him, “but I’ve got no money in my pockets.”

The bartender turned around. Barba recognized her from the papers, and from a picture in the hallway leading to the DA’s office: ADA Claire Kincaid.

“Scoticis cupam?” Kincaid guessed.

His cohort of discarded ADAs weren’t kidding: the ghosts only spoke Latin.

“Sí,” he said, following the word with a nod when her expression revealed that she didn’t understand. 

“There’s no word for yes in Latin,” a man’s voice said behind him. 

A dark-haired man in a bathing suit similar to Barba’s and a white V-neck t-shirt approached the bar and began talking to Kincaid in rapid Latin. He looked uncannily familiar, but Barba couldn’t place his face. 

Kincaid poured Barba a tumbler of scotch and slid it his way. 

“Gracias,” he said, and she seemed to understand that. He wondered what on earth (if they were on earth at all) a woman who’d been killed in a drunk driving crash was doing working at a bar. 

Maybe she was bored. Maybe tending bar all night helped her forget her fate. 

“Kevin Mulrooney,” the man now sitting next to him said.

Barba shook Mulrooney’s hand, fighting back a cringe. He knew the name, he’d recognized it when Novak had mentioned him earlier: a disgraced ADA who’d been convicted of murder. He’d shot the defendant from a case he’d lost years ago, the one which had ground any hope of his promotion at the DA’s office to a halt. Mulrooney blamed then-Detective Alex Eames for his downfall, and had attempted to frame her in the murder that he himself had committed. 

“The one and only Rafael Barba,” Mulrooney said, an almost-creepy smile forming on his lips. “How the mighty have fallen. I once had a promising career at the DA’s office too.”

“Esse genus ad Rafael,” ADA Sonya Paxton — who he’d worked with once fifteen years ago, when there was a jurisdictional issue with an assault that had happened on the Brooklyn Bridge — came up behind them. “Quod sit novum.”

Mulrooney answered her back in what sounded like fluent Latin. 

“So, you’re the only one who learned Latin, I see,” Barba commented.

“There’s Connie, who hasn’t really been able to pick any of it up, but she’s the only other person here who’s comfortable talking to the ghosts,” Mulrooney said. “But you and I, we’ve been through murder trials, we know what it’s like, so we should stick together.”

Barba had no impulse to insist _we’re not the same_ , but he suspected that he should have. 

He sipped his scotch and was grateful for the familiar burn in his throat and warmth in his chest. Kincaid brought Paxton a soda.

“So, uh —” Barba started into his glass as Paxton sat on the other side of him. “Ms. Paxton, como sales de — ex —”

Mulrooney laughed, conferring with the two ghosts in rapid Latin again. “I’ve been here for almost ten years,” he told Barba. “You know, you can go home again for a week if you —”

“Yes,” he said, “let’s not talk about that.”

Mulrooney translated for the ghosts, who both offered Barba slightly-exaggerated expressions of sympathy. Kincaid laid a hand over her heart, then poured him more whiskey.

“De omnibus nobis,” Paxton said to Barba, “tibi adepto vade in domum tuam et saltem duobus annis.”

Mulrooney laughed. 

“What’d she say?” Barba asked.

“Of all of us, you should be the one who gets to go home for at least two years.”

“That would indeed reflect the degree to which I’ve made Olivia Benson sad,” Barba said, and Mulrooney translated for Paxton and Kincaid.

Mulrooney downed the rest of his beer, stood, shook Barba’s hand again, and told them he was turning in for the night. 

After Mulrooney left, Kincaid pressed her hands to the bar and smiled sadly at Barba. “De lingua Latina non habent satis maledictionem pro Jack McCoy,” she said, and what she said was close enough to Spanish for him to understand that she was saying that the Latin language didn’t have enough swear words to describe Jack McCoy. “Non debes esse in reus est caedis.”

He was able to figure that one out too: _You should not have been on trial for murder._

“Dices ad eum de Jamie Ross,” Paxton instructed.

“Quod non intellegunt,” was Kincaid’s response.

Jamie Ross was the only former ADA who wasn’t on the island, Barba guessed. She was a criminal court judge, recently appointed to another ten-year term. 

“Iudex,” Kincaid said, clearly hoping to get the point across. 

_Judge._

“Solo salida — camino — ex — aquí?” Barba tried.

“In tantum ut non modo huc missum est,” Paxton said. “Quod ita ex.”

 _Ita ex_ , Barba thought, that must mean _a way out_. Quod ita ex: if there is a way out.

“Gracias,” he told the women. 

“Sero in caritate,” Kincaid said sadly. “Paenitet.” 

“It’s okay,” Barba said. 

He wandered onto the beach. The sand beneath his feet felt neither warm nor cold. He picked up his pace, focusing on the lines of white foam that pointed him to where the Atlantic Ocean — or what Alex Cabot had told him was the Atlantic Ocean — crashed into the shore.

He swam out until an undertow began to carry him parallel to the shore, and then swam with that undertow, hoping it would take him away from the island, rather than back towards it.

Finally, he reached a relatively calm stretch of ocean where he was able to float on his back and rest a while before continuing on. He couldn’t see the island, or any hint of land, or any ship approaching or retreating. So, he looked up at the stars, none of which were familiar. 

“Liv,” he said, the name a sob caught in his throat. “Liv.”


End file.
